Michael Connarty: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for not being able to raise this matter with you before questions; I did not get the detail from Hansard until after Scottish questions. Yesterday, as is recorded at columns 715-16 of Hansard the hon. Member for Shrewsbury nd Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) repeated an accusation, which he admitted had come to him anonymously, of interference with postal ballots during both council elections and the general election. He named a village, and indicated that the individuals involved were postal workers; as you know, I am the secretary of the Communication Workers Union liaison group. He indicated that they were councillors, and gave so much information that anyone could identify the persons accused. At column 717, he went on to attack the reputation of the candidate chosen to stand against him in the election, and admitted that he had not raised the matter with the police. Will you look at those columns and rule on whether, if not a breach of privilege, an abuse of privilege of the House has taken place?

John Leech: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the reduction of the default speed limit in lit urban areas from 30 mph to 20 mph; and for connected purposes.
	I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce this ten-minute Bill. I came into politics to make a difference. When I had the opportunity to vote for a comprehensive smoking ban in public places, I supported that ban because I firmly believed that it would save lives by discouraging people from smoking and protecting others from passive smoking. However, I recognised that I was risking the wrath of thousands of smokers in my constituency. Having been given the opportunity to introduce a ten-minute Bill today, I wanted to introduce another measure that would save lives. My Bill will do just that, by reducing speed limits and cutting the number of fatal accidents and serious injuries on our roads. On this occasion, too, I am aware that on I risk the wrath of some motorists in my constituency, who might see the Bill as an unnecessarily draconian attempt to cut speed.
	I have been in politics long enough to recognise that any measures for improving road safety—whether they be speed cameras, traffic calming, one-way systems or speed restrictions—will always be controversial. That is partly because drivers are often unaware of the impact that different speeds have on an accident victim. A survey of 180 drivers carried out by the charity Brake and Green Flag Motoring Assistance showed that although motorists were able to predict fairly accurately the survival rate of accident victims hit at 40 mph, on average they believed that a pedestrian hit at 20 mph would have only a 32 per cent. chance of survival, whereas the figure is in fact 95 per cent. It is therefore little wonder that some motorists are against additional traffic-calming measures and are not persuaded to cut their speed, because they do not appreciate the impact that reducing their speed would have on the outcome of a collision.
	My Bill would reduce the default speed limit on lit urban roads from 30 mph to 20 mph, making 20 mph the norm rather than the exception. My assumption is that the vast majority of residential streets would have the 20 mph limit, with local authorities having the discretion to raise the limit to 30 mph on roads where 20 mph is not appropriate or to lower it where 20 mph is still too high—for example, where home zones are introduced and pedestrians are prioritised over motorists.
	Plans to reduce the default speed limit have attracted support from both sides of the House and from a number of organisations. They include the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, Brake—the road safety charity that provides support to the all-party group on road safety—the Cyclists Touring Club, which is the national cyclists organisation, and their partners in the Slower Speeds Initiative. They include groups such as Living Streets, formerly the Pedestrians Association, the sustainable transport campaign Transport 2000, the sustainable transport charity Sustrans, and the road crash victims group RoadPeace, which all previously supported attempts to reduce the default speed limit during the passage of the Road Safety Act 2006. I should also like to thank Roger Geffen of CTC, Rachel Burr of Brake and Emily Crawford of PACTS, for their support and for providing valuable statistics about safety.
	The status quo is unsatisfactory, and a decision to reduce the speed limit on a particular road is usually reactive, rather than proactive. There has to be evidence that the road in question is dangerous at speeds of 30 mph—usually in the form of accidents that have already taken place. However, I would argue that we should assume that 30 mph is a dangerous speed on all residential streets, and that on the whole, 20 is plenty.
	One reason why I want to introduce this Bill is that I have been disappointed by Manchester city council's lukewarm response to a request for a reduction in the speed limit on some residential streets in my constituency. When Chorlton residents on Brundretts road contacted me because they were concerned about cars driving at 30 mph or faster—despite the presence of parked cars on either side of the road restricting motorists' visibility and that of pedestrians trying to cross a busy road—the council refused to take action. It refused not because it did not particularly want to take action, but because the road was not seen as a priority. Although it was accepted that 30 mph was not an appropriate speed on that road, the traffic department was unable to justify spending money to reduce the speed limit because other road safety schemes were considered a higher priority. By putting road safety first and having a lower speed limit, the Bill would turn the tables: local authorities would have to prioritise the roads on which they want to increase the speed limit, rather than needing to prioritise safety schemes.
	All the evidence points to the fact that lower speeds make our roads safer not just for motorists but, more importantly, for the most vulnerable road users: pedestrians and cyclists. Safer roads will encourage more people to walk and to cycle, especially children travelling to school. One of the most common reasons that people give for not cycling is that they do not believe that the roads are safe for cycling. Reducing the speed limit will help to raise their confidence in the safety of roads, and therefore help to tackle congestion.
	The first three 20 mph zones in the UK were implemented in January 1991. Five years later, the Transport Research Laboratory reviewed the results from 250 zones in England, Wales and Scotland. The average speed in these areas was reduced by 9 mph. The total number of crashes fell by 60 per cent., and the number of accidents involving children fell by 67 per cent. The number of crashes involving cyclists also fell, by 27 per cent. In 2003, the Health Development Agency called for a reduction in the speed limit to 20 mph on residential streets. It estimated that that would reduce child deaths and injuries by a massive 67 per cent.—or 13,000 children—each year.
	One council that has led the way is Hull city council, which has introduced 20 mph zones on a quarter of its roads. There has been a 74 per cent. reduction in the number of crashes involving child pedestrians, and a 69 per cent. reduction in child cycle collisions in the three years since the zones' introduction, compared with the three before the speed limit changed. The overall number of collisions in Hull has been reduced by 56 per cent., and there has been a 90 per cent. reduction in serious or fatal injury collisions.
	The reduction in accidents is due at least in part to the effect that lower speeds have on vehicles' stopping distances. A 50 per cent. increase in speed from 20 mph to 30 mph results in a 50 per cent. increase in the "thinking distance", but the actual braking distance increases at a much faster rate. In fact, it increases in proportion to the speed squared, which means that driving at 30 mph instead of 20 mph increases the stopping distance by 134 per cent. That is why so many accidents could be avoided with a default speed limit of 20 mph.
	However, the Bill is aimed at reducing not just the number of accidents but the severity of those that would inevitably still take place. If a pedestrian is hit at 20 mph, the victim has a 95 per cent. chance of survival. That is reduced to 80 per cent. at 30 mph, and where a motorist breaks the 30 mph limit by as much as 10 mph, a pedestrian has a 90 per cent. chance of being killed by the impact.
	As well as Hull, other local authorities have also been proactive. Portsmouth, Newcastle and Southwark should all be congratulated on their decision to adopt 20 mph as the limit for most residential streets. However, Parliament should take the lead. The Government missed the perfect opportunity during the passage of the Road Safety Act 2006.
	There is absolutely no doubt that reducing the default speed limit from 30 mph to 20 mph would have the greatest impact on road safety and accident statistics. With more than two thirds of road casualties occurring on built-up roads, evidence from places such as Hull proves the clear potential for reducing casualties through lower speed limits.
	This Bill is not about attacking the motorist, nor is it aimed at inconveniencing car drivers with unnecessarily longer journeys. Nor is it about imposing rules on local authorities: councils can choose to have a 30 mph speed limit where they consider 20 mph to be inappropriate. The Bill is about saving lives. The statistics speak for themselves: speeds will drop, the number of accidents will fall, and those who are injured will be more likely to survive, and not to be seriously injured. I am disappointed that we have had no help from the Minister, but I hope that the Bill will receive support from both sides of the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. John Leech, Mark Hunter, Bob Russell, Tim Farron, Dr. Evan Harris, Dr. Vincent Cable, Mr. David Drew, Mr. Andy Reed, Tom Brake, Paul Rowen and Dr. John Pugh.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I had no intention of taking part in the debate, but I have considerable reservations. There has been an astonishing sideways move on the subject of the extension of the Mayor's powers to overground railways outside the London area, and that has resulted in a strange, unstructured debate. As far as I know, the House of Commons has not yet formulated a view on the matter, although individual Members have considerable worries about it. It would be unwise to slip gently into an arrangement that could have damaging effects without proper consultation. The Mayor may have territorial claims on areas outside those that elect him, although that establishes an interesting precedent, and the House of Commons ought to think about that seriously before it accepts the idea. In addition, if the railways are to be considered an extension of the London Mayor's empire, other areas of the country will have something to say about the matter.
	It is perfectly true that because of the attractions of the capital city all our railways either begin or end in London. It is all very well saying that it would be convenient for a large conurbation to have control over the bits of a service that happen to run through it, but the matter is rather more complicated than that. I am concerned about us slipping, almost by default, into a situation in which it looks as though we accept the case for the Mayor having control over overground railways, although I am sure that we do not.
	I am not a lawyer, and I do not know whether that is the implication of the new clause, but if it does provide that power it should be fully debated. It should be put in context and understood, and we should have the right to ask whether it should happen. All our transport systems must be integrated. I do not object at all to political appointments for such arrangements. Indeed, if I were in charge of the national health service, I would introduce a simple measure excluding anyone who did not believe in an integrated health service. It would not admit competition between hospitals and other units, and it would make it impossible for private hospitals to compete with national health units. It would make it impossible for anyone carrying private health insurance to play any role whatsoever in the NHS. If one or two supplementary clauses automatically excluded members of new Labour, that would be an excellent idea. Sadly, however, the House of Commons does not accept such restrictions.
	I therefore have only one or two things to ask the Minister. First, does the extension of power mean that the Mayor automatically has a say in the planning and execution of services, as well as the way in which they are integrated with the overground railway? If so, do the railway industry and passenger services have the right to be consulted about that extension of power? Secondly, is it in the interests of an elected mayor, whoever they are, to be able to control services outwith the area in which they were elected? Does that not raise an interesting point, which should concern us very deeply? Thirdly, if the Department for Transport was consulted, and is in the process of consulting, may we know the terms of reference?

David Evennett: Yes, on this issue we are. Bexley already has its own incinerator to deal with its own rubbish. We feel that Bexley should not be imposed on by the hon. Gentleman's borough and other parts of London; they should be doing the job themselves. The Mayor is against this incinerator on environmental and other grounds, and we share his view. However, the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) would give power to the Mayor and the centre, thereby taking away local democracy and local decision making. Indeed, the Government have done that by imposing an incinerator on us. We do not want any more such impositions, which is why I am against the new clause. It would not be in the long-term interests of recycling or of Bexley.

Mark Field: I am not aware of all the overseas comparators, although I confess that I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling), who was a member of the Committee, whether there was a single waste authority in New York. He said that there had been one for quite some years, but I am not proposing that we should take the direct comparator route because I do not know enough about the New York situation, although clearly there is a large number of flats in Manhattan and one or two other New York boroughs. My concern about the one-size-fits-all idea is that it would go against the grain of many of the important initiatives that have taken place over the past decade.
	There is no doubt that the UK has had a terrible recycling record for many years. The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North rather excitably referred to a 19th-century recycling scheme. However, tens of thousands of people in London died from cholera every decade during that century, so whatever one thinks of the scheme she mentioned, we shall not be taking that recycling and waste disposal route in the years ahead.
	Our record has improved significantly, so it is incumbent on anyone proposing a new system to recognise those improvements and ensure that any new arrangements bring about a step change. That would not be the case under the proposed authority. There is little justification for the Mayor taking over local waste collection and recycling services that already operate successfully in line with, or exceeding, national targets and strategies, as is the case in Westminster, where I hope there will be rapid improvements in the years ahead.
	The Mayor has argued that a single waste authority is necessary in the light of both London's relatively poor performance in diverting waste from landfill and the scale of the task the capital faces in meeting future targets. One accepts that there has been a relatively poor record, but it has been much improved. Collection and recycling arrangements have much wider implications for the quality of the local street scene. The development and roll-out of new services needs to be closely integrated with highway design, street furniture and cleansing policies, all of which should be pre-eminently local. Indeed, the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North accepted earlier that such matters should remain local. Although it is recognised that there are a significant number of underperforming London boroughs and that they require assistance, I strongly oppose any form of Mayor-controlled, single waste management authority for London. It would remove vital borough powers and produce an undemocratic structure that would be imposed on London's residents.
	Most importantly, no business case has yet been made for the Mayor's preferred option of a single waste authority. I therefore urge the Government to await the conclusion of the ongoing discussions taking place on the issue between the boroughs under the guidance of London Councils, the umbrella organisation for London local authorities, before considering any future waste management structure for London. I am very grateful for the assurances that have been given by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who said that he felt that a single waste authority for London would not be the right solution.
	I hope that if the new clause goes to a vote an overwhelming majority of Members in all parts of the House will defeat it. I accept the heartfelt way in which the proposal was made, but a single waste authority is not right for London, or Londoners, now.

Simon Hughes: I will try and give a short answer. I do not think that until relatively recently, many boroughs were seized of the importance of these matters. I shall be blunt. Environmental awareness and turning it into strategic policy priorities has happened in the past few years. Like other colleagues, I travel round the country. I now notice that waste, recycling and environmental issues are much more often on the agenda locally than they were three, four or five years ago, by miles. There has been a cultural shift. That has come about for all sorts of reasons, as we know—not least better education and greater awareness of the crisis that we face. The pressure is now on. If were in the same relative position in four or five years, my argument would be much weaker. I think there has been an awakening to the issue.
	The figures are not as black and white as the hon. Lady paints them in relation to London's performance. I do not pretend to have seen all the figures, but I have seen the figures from the Mayor's office and the GLA, and the figures from the London Councils group and others. London performance is improving. Yes, other comparable cities in the world may be improving more, but London is suddenly on the move and going in the right direction.
	My final point is that there would be a major cost disadvantage in going down the proposed route. The figure that I have suggests that there might be a £5.5 million per year differential. In a period of relatively scarce resources in local or regional government, £5.5 million a year could reasonably be spent on many other things. We are desperately short of affordable housing. Colleagues were talking this morning about more energy efficient housing. There are all sorts of things that we could spend the money on. We cannot afford a luxury model that most people do not want and which is not proven to be likely to be more successful, when people are improving the situation locally.
	We can always advance a nimbyish argument and say that we want to do it our way, however bad we are. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) makes a good point about London having a responsibility not to be a regular net exporter of waste to landfill sites. I understand that a third of the landfill is food waste, and the capital city probably produces more food waste because we are over-indulgent. There are all sorts of things that we need to do for ourselves and for everyone else to make sure that we reduce the waste that we produce. We need not be irresponsible neighbours.
	In boroughs like mine, we are beginning to go in the right direction, and we are saying to the Government, "Please allow us to go on doing what we think we can show is rapidly improving the position, with innovative, modern, best practice schemes." My borough is up for it. We are ready to set the best practice. We want to continue to be encouraged by Government and allowed to get on with that.

Andrew Dismore: I think that the lines of authority and responsibility would be that much clearer, so it would make life much easier if we had such a system. It is quite clear that the system in place so far has not achieved that, as shown by the judicial reviews that we have already had.
	I believe that having a single waste authority for London would provide economies of scale, focus, and strategic investment to minimise unnecessary transport movements. It would provide procurement expertise and an unfettered priority to meet the Government's waste management objectives. It would put a premium on procuring state-of-the-art and environmentally friendly bulk recycling facilities. In London, we suffer from a waste management system creaking under the weight of its own contradictions and poor performance. The future needs to be radically different from the past and we require a wholesale change in approach, not a mere tinkling with the current inadequate set-up. We need the sort of approach outlined in the new clauses, amendments and schedules that my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North and I have proposed this evening.

Tom Brake: I should like to start by saying, "Credit where credit is due." The hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) has been consistent in deploying her argument, both today and in Committee. She said that she did not want this issue to split the parties. Well, it does not, because the Government, the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats are all united against her proposal. If it has split any party, it is her own party, which seems to be divided down the middle on the issue, as we have seen today. I hope, however, that she does not feel that the parties are ganging up on her.
	There are some areas of agreement, however. I agree with the hon. Lady that incineration should be minimised as far as possible, and we are all in agreement that some London councils perform well while others perform very badly. However, I wonder whether there might not be risks associated with the Mayor taking on waste disposal through a single waste authority. He might, for instance, adopt a policy of maximising recycling, but we all know that the market for recyclables goes up and down, so he could be left in a very difficult position. Perhaps a mixed economy, in which different authorities were trying different things, would be safer in the long term than going for one particular approach.
	It feels almost as though our debate on 16 January did not take place. The hon. Lady has restated the arguments that she set out in that debate, but they were not accepted by Members on that day, and I do not think that they have been developed since then. I suspect that the outcome of today's debate will therefore be the same because our concerns have not been addressed. Indeed, new concerns have been identified today, including the problem of the lowest common denominator. Is it not possible that, under a single waste disposal authority, the best performing authorities would find their performance being pushed down, even if the worst performing authorities were dragged up a little? That risk certainly exists.
	Neither the hon. Lady nor other Labour Members could explain why they have this blind faith in the powers of the Mayor to make things different. Why would he be able to improve the bottom authorities? She did not explain how he would achieve that. It is clear from the examples given by other Members this afternoon that some local authorities are grabbing the problem by the scruff of the neck and beginning to tackle it. The hon. Lady did not explain why a one-size-fits-all approach would be appropriate. Would she deploy similar proposals for other aspects of London life? Some might argue, for example, that the pan-London schools admissions system was not working well and that there was a case for the Mayor taking responsibility for that as well. She did not make a convincing argument for why the London-wide waste authority was an appropriate approach to take, and she is not advocating similar measures in other areas. With regard to admissions, local authorities across London have worked together to devise a system which, while not perfect, ensures a much quicker response for children seeking places in secondary schools.
	Perhaps the hon. Lady was hoping that Members would have short memories, and that we would have forgotten what took place on 16 January. I think that even Members have slightly longer memories than that. Perhaps she was hoping that the Members here today who were not in Committee would be convinced by her arguments, but I do not think that is the case. One major flaw in the hon. Lady's proposal is the fact that is goes against the grain of the whole Bill. We have some arguments with the Government over the planning aspects of the Bill, in which there is a move towards centralising power in the hands of the Mayor and taking it away from local authorities, but, broadly speaking, it is a devolutionary Bill. However, the hon. Lady's proposals are very much about centralising in the hands of the Mayor powers that are currently held by the local authorities, which goes against the grain.
	I should like to leave the hon. Lady with a few examples from the London councils briefing. Perhaps they will also be useful to other Members who have not heard the arguments. They provide reasons why her proposals should be opposed. Members of a financially prudent nature—I am sure that that applies to all of us—will want to know that the Government's estimate of the additional cost of the proposals is £5.5 million a year. Members who are worried about money and about the council tax levels that their residents would have to pay should remember that. Those of an environmental bent might be interested to know that the new body would divert valuable resources from the serious business of addressing issues such as recycling. It would distract attention from what we are trying to achieve on environmental matters.
	Furthermore, we all know that organisational and structural changes divert valuable management resources and distract attention from the key objectives of an organisation. We have seen this happening time and again in the NHS, and we do not want to see it happing with waste disposal in London. Many Members have expressed support for devolutionary measures, but putting these powers in the hands of the Mayor and City Hall would clearly not be a devolutionary measure.
	Finally, I make an appeal to Labour Back Benchers who, I am sure, will want to do the right thing by their Government. The Government have made it clear—be it through the Minister who is here today or the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—that they do not support this proposal in any shape or form. I hope that the hon. Lady will withdraw her new clause, but if she does not we shall join the Government and the official Opposition in opposing it.

Jacqui Lait: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend's intervention went straight over my head. My only thought on this subject is that I was in Cardiff on Saturday and Sunday, and I am not sure that that match was the best example ever of football. However, I did not watch it, so I cannot contribute anything further.
	I was about to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Bromley and Chislehurst and for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling), both of whom are my constituency neighbours, for their enormously useful contribution—minus the football remarks—to the Bill Committee, for their comments this evening, and in particular for their observations on the assembly budget. Their intimate knowledge of how the budget system works—or does not work—is very valuable to us all. I also thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for tabling new clause 8, which we will support if it is pressed to a vote.
	I do not want to take up much more time, given that the arguments have been exceedingly well made. I am rather glad, however, that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) is back in the Chamber, because he is responsible for the whole mess that assembly budget is in. It was during his stewardship of the original GLA Bill that the Government failed to take into account the impact of their proportional representation system, which means practically by definition that no one political party will ever get a majority—and deliberately so, as he clearly explained at the time. However, the difficulty was that, in line with the mindset of the first-past-the-post system, of which I am a great supporter, the Government imposed the three-quarters majority rule on the budget vote.

Tom Brake: I have listened carefully to the Minister. I suspect that he and I both have a sense of déj? vu about tonight's debate and I noticed that the Minister could not identify a Back Bencher who supported the Government's case. I thank Conservative Members for supporting our case and I am beginning to detect—especially in the hon. Members for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling)—certain Liberal Democrat tendencies, which will do them no good in their careers.
	The Minister claims that the model has been tried and tested, but that does not mean that it could not be improved. That is what new clause 8 seeks to do by providing more oversight, more scrutiny and more checks and balances. The Minister has not convinced me that we should do anything other than vote for new clause 8 tonight.

Simon Hughes: I shall be brief, but I have exactly the same strength of view as has been expressed by many on the Opposition Benches and by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford).
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) made it clear, the objection is to clause 31 as drafted. It gives a new power, which we have not had before, to allow an application made to the local planning authority to be the subject of a direction by the Mayor that he will be the planning authority—he will take that on. The criteria are defined in general terms in the Bill. One of the qualifications is that the application has to be
	"an application of potential strategic importance."
	We are then meant to look at the secondary legislation, which is in draft, as the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and others have mentioned, to see how that is defined. That is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge.
	I believe that many of us will have received a letter from the Mayor in advance of this debate. It is extremely disingenuous in certain respects, as hon. Members would expect. It states:
	"Boroughs will still continue to determine over 99 per cent. of all applications."
	That may be true, but if anyone were to think that it refers to 99 per cent. of all their housing or of all the space taken up, it would not be true. We are talking about mansard roof extensions being in the same league as the redevelopments of the Heygate estate, the Aylesbury estate, the Greenwich riverside and the St. Helier estate in Sutton or as a development along the riverside in Richmond or Kingston.
	Page 7 of the letter contains an extraordinarily disingenuous prayer in aid:
	"Contrary to some claims, there is considerable support for the planning changes. A recent Ipsos MORI poll showed that Londoners support the proposals for the Mayor to approve major planning applications. Sixty-four per cent. of those polled reported that they would support the Mayor's involvement in applications for a new recycling plant to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites in London".
	What that meant was that two thirds of people wanted less landfill and that they wanted to recycle. It was not about wanting the Mayor to have the power to do that.
	The letter continued:
	"A huge 83 per cent. supported the Mayor's target that 50 per cent. of all new homes should be affordable for people on low and moderate incomes."
	Well, there is a surprise. Of course people want a high target on affordable housing—I do for my constituency. I have always argued for a figure of 50 per cent. to apply in Southwark, as have my colleagues. As an aside, they were defeated during the previous administration, when we were the minority, by a Labour-Tory coalition that regrettably voted down a 50 per cent. proposal.
	I shall reinforce the argument as to why the current proposals are not only flawed, but wrong. They undermine democracy and will, if the Government sustain them, in all likelihood, be defeated when the Bill goes to the other place. I am sure that those proposals will not get through because they offer a power to the Mayor to grab the decisions on matters that are not of strategic importance to London. I want to give two examples in that regard.
	The first concerns a debate that is going on in my borough about whether, in a small development by Barratt Homes in Surrey docks, there should be a larger or smaller development. Barratt wanted a larger development, but the local authority said no. There was an appeal and the matter went to a public inquiry. The inspector said no, so it went to the Secretary of State, who said yes. Why has the Secretary of State said yes? Because that is the implication of what the Mayor wants; he wants that bit of Surrey docks to be designated as urban, not as suburban, even though it is woodland and is meant to be laid out in a suburban way. That is the reason why the Mayor is objecting to the unitary development plan. The development has no strategic importance for London. Southwark, which is doing well at meeting its housing targets and wants to do more, wishes to replace the big Heygate estate with new housing, including more social housing, and to replace the Aylesbury estate with a development involving at least as much social housing as at present, as well as other housing.
	There is, of course, a debate about how to achieve the amount of housing that we need in London. There should be a dialogue and agreement between the Mayor and the local authority, and the local authority must then be free to decide where to put the housing and how to do build it. It should be able to decide whether it wants a tall development, a big estate, or lots of little developments. Such decisions should be taken by local authorities, so it is not for the Mayor to say, "You will have this great big development in the middle of your borough, whether or not you think it is appropriate."
	There will be a huge danger if a development becomes strategic just because it is regarded as being big—a development with more than 500 dwellings, to cite the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Slaughter). The two biggest developments in my borough are strategic for Southwark, but not for London. They are replacements for existing developments. They will involve more social housing, although sadly they cannot be made up of council housing in whole or part because the Government do not make such an option available. There is a great danger that if the Mayor and the Government—if they are in cahoots—suddenly decide to define something as strategic, that will determine the interpretation.
	Like my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, I have a huge amount of riverside in my constituency all the way from the Oxo tower to Deptford creek. It would be absolutely possible for a Mayor to say that every single development on that river is strategic. Of course, there is a site of huge strategic importance by Tower bridge and City hall on Potters Fields—it is strategic because it involves a world heritage site—but that is not the same as a little site in which a development could be squeezed down in Rotherhithe, Surrey docks, or the Deptford borders.
	We are absolutely right to oppose these dangerous proposals. I am keen for the Liberal Democrat and Conservative amendments to be put to the vote. If they are defeated, I am as sure as anyone can be that this will not be the last that people will hear of the matter. I ask the Minister, in all seriousness, to back down. This is not local government, but a creep towards regional and central Government making decisions that should be taken by local councillors. Why will people stand for local elections and participate in the process if, at the end of the day, someone else takes the decisions?

Yvette Cooper: I congratulate the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) on getting her head around the order extremely rapidly and for refraining from using any footballing metaphor, which was a relief to me at least. I also join her in wishing the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) a speedy recovery. I imagine that he, of all people, would suffer from not having his voice. He certainly ensured that debates in Committee were always amiable and cheery, and we have had a good debate today too.
	Hon. Members have raised a series of issues and tabled a series of amendments on the planning measures that are part of the GLA Bill. In the limited time that remains, I will try to address as many of those as possible. I will begin by addressing some of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), and then deal with some of the points made about specific amendments by Opposition Members.
	The approach set out in the draft order does not use size as the only test of strategic importance. It does set thresholds, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich is right that the thresholds are modelled around those for the negative powers. A policy test is also set out in paragraph 8 of the order to ensure that the development to which the application relates must be of such a nature or scale that there would be a significant impact on the implementation of the London plan.
	The thresholds were modelled around the negative criteria because many of the stakeholders had asked for some simplicity and clarity in the operation of the process. In particular, London First, which represents major business development in the capital, argued for the same thresholds to apply for the negative and positive criteria, to ensure some simplicity and clarity for people making applications. We are not talking about increases in the number of cases that need to be referred to the Mayor, except on issues such as waste. We are, however, talking about giving the Mayor a positive power, not simply an anti-development power.
	As for how the current criteria operate, until September last year about 300—0.3 per cent.—of the 90,000 applications were referred to the Mayor, and he used his power of direction in about three or 0.003 per cent. of those applications. Obviously, those are the largest of the applications, because that is exactly the specification in relation to strategic importance. We expect the Mayor to be similarly sparing in the use of the positive power, which is why we have set out proposals in the order. There are areas in which the negative criteria, applied in the same way as the positive criteria, do not work. That has been raised in discussions and consultation with stakeholders on the order, and particularly in relation to paragraph 3, I think, of the schedule. I have already asked officials to look again at those matters, because, otherwise, there is a risk that there will be perverse incentives for developers and decision making in that area.
	We need to recognise the difference between the way in which the thresholds and policy tests work. We are currently consulting on that, and we will consult formally on the final version of the order. We thought that it was important, however, to debate the order as part of the Bill.
	In Committee, I said that there are arguments in favour of a geographic test, which the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich raised, and which is specified in some of the amendments now being considered. We consulted at an earlier stage on a possible geographic test. Again, London First was among those who argued that it would lead to a lack of clarity and greater complexity. For that reason, it was not appropriate to include it in the draft order, but we will continue to listen to views on that in the consultation, as, clearly, there are some arguments in favour of such a test.
	Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 deal with issues relating to planning obligations. They would remove the Mayor's ability to negotiate and agree planning obligations relating to the planning applications that he is responsible for deciding. That would be unworkable in practice. Planning obligations play an important role in planning applications, and can be about either mitigating the adverse impact of development or the importance of affordable housing as part of that development. It is unworkable to expect the Mayor to take decisions on a planning application but not to be engaged in the planning obligations that make those applications possible.
	Similar arguments apply to enforcement and the need to be able to ensure that the decisions that are taken are properly enforced. It would of course be far more sensible in practice for the boroughs to take the lead on those enforcement decisions, but it is not right to rule out the possibility of the Mayor also being able to take enforcement action where necessary. Planning guidance circular 05/2005 governs planning obligations and is clear that the Mayor cannot simply take section 106 moneys for his own schemes and ignore local issues. There is already clear guidance to ensure that where the boroughs have issues that section 106 needs to fund, that must happen, to ensure that the application can go ahead and that infrastructure considerations are properly taken into account.
	New clauses 9, 10, 11 and 12 seek to apply the provisions of part 5A of the Local Government Act 1972 to the Mayor and to address the need for transparency and a proper process. I have a lot of sympathy for those new clauses, which raise some important issues. As part of the order, we have set out some requirements relating to transparency and process. However, were we to redraft the 1972 Act now, I am not sure that there would be the same appetite for setting out those requirements in primary legislation rather than in secondary legislation. Many of those issues are dealt with far better through secondary legislation. I am happy to look again at what should be in primary legislation rather in than secondary legislation, but my presumption is that such procedural issues are best dealt with through secondary legislation. However, we are sympathetic to the idea of ensuring that the representations from local authorities and others should be heard in public meetings, rather than ensuring simply that they take place. We covered that point in Committee, although we shall certainly consider it further. However, there are advantages to ensuring that such issues are covered through secondary legislation as far as possible, in order to have the flexibility to respond to new problems that arise.
	We have ensured in the order that the Mayor should give at least 14 days notice of any hearing, and publish agendas and relevant reports at least seven days ahead of the meeting, which goes further than the proposals in new clause 10. On amendment No. 3, there is a need to place a time limit on the Mayor's decision. However, our proposal is that the Mayor should decide within 14 days of being notified of the borough's proposed decision, not within 21 days of being notified of the application. Amendment No. 3 would have a perverse effect, which is not supported by the boroughs, the Mayor or London First, in that it would involve the Mayor taking a decision much earlier, and potentially even taking over more applications than he would need to. London Councils were strongly against that approach in its representations to us, which is why we have not taken it forward.
	Amendment Nos. 18 and 31 set out alternative definitions of "strategic importance". I have dealt with the geographic test and said that we are happy to consider that further. We also think that there are some benefits to the wording in those amendments, in ensuring that there are "sound planning reasons" for so acting. A series of respondents have put that proposal forward, which might be a helpful addition to the order.
	The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) raised the specific circumstances that the City of London faces, which we recognise. It has a much higher proportion of commercial developments as opposed to residential developments, and faces particular circumstances, given its role in the economy. We have therefore already set higher thresholds for the City of London, and we are prepared to consider the issue further as part of the consultation.
	Members raised a range of issues and tabled various amendments in this group; however, I am running out of time. The debate on the order is the appropriate place to discuss this level of detail. We should have the opportunity to review the performance of this provision, and we will debate it further. However, we do not think it right to put all such measures into primary legislation and to try, in effect, to remove the Mayor from all consideration of housing matters. There are important strategic housing issues across London—
	 It being Nine o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [12 December 2006].
	 Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Jacqui Lait: I thought for one moment, when the Under-Secretary pointed skywards, that he had heard news that I had not, but I am glad to say that I could absolutely deny news of that sort.
	It was important that proceedings on the Bill were conducted with good humour because the Bill is of enormous importance, as the Minister rightly said. The governance of London is of great importance. I must say that I disagree with her when she says that the greatness of London is a reflection of the works of the Mayor. I think that London's great success currently has more to do with Sarbanes-Oxley than the Mayor of London. However, we will take that as read and we will move on to consider the Bill as it is on Third Reading, having been amended in Committee and on Report.
	I am afraid that I have to give the Minister bad news: we will continue to oppose the proposals in the Bill, fundamentally because they take power away from the boroughs and give it to the Mayor. The Minister may well say that the Bill is a devolutionary measure, but that is not how it seems to my local residents, who feel that they are losing control over their own communities. They particularly object to the planning and housing powers, although I note that the Minister became more conciliatory, doubtless because of the superb speech by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) on precisely what "strategic" means. He drove a coach and horses through the draft statutory instrument, and I was relieved to learn that the Minister is prepared to take some of his points on board.
	However, the fundamental point remains that, under the Bill and the statutory instrument as drafted, local people will lose control of their environment. It is exceedingly unfair, to put it politely, of the Minister to imply that people in London are not concerned about providing the housing that London needs. The reality is that it is they who know their communities, not the Mayor of London. It is they who can decide how many houses they wish to have built, and they who can decide what sort of community they live in. If those communities are destroyed because of increased density or inappropriate developments, the problem of deprivation will just move to other parts of London. That is not the proper way to encourage London to be a healthy city, and if it is to be successful as an international city, it has to be at peace with itself.
	I do not want to go through the details of the Bill, but the Minister will remember that we are still unhappy about the budget. It is nonsensical that the Mayor can get his budget agreed to with the support of only a quarter of assembly members. On achieving a majority for the budget, the conjunction of proportional representation and first past the post has led to a completely nonsensical situation when it comes to providing any form of effective scrutiny of the budget.
	We still have concerns serious concerns about the governance of Transport for London, and I am sure that the issue will be raised in debates in another place. We supported the Government's proposals on waste collection, but that does not mean that we do not want improvements in the effectiveness of waste disposal by the boroughs. We will press the Government hard to build on developments in science and technology to ensure that London does its share of waste disposal and recycling.
	I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the Bill, because giving more powers to the Mayor will not enhance the governance of London and will not deliver a city that continues to benefit from the effectiveness of the City of London.

Andrew Slaughter: I did not say always, but I do say likely. Given the housing pressures in London, which the hon. Gentleman, to give him credit, admits and given the huge levels of housing need which he, like me, must have in his constituency, we need to ensure that proper provision is made for affordable housing, both intermediate and social rented housing, in London. That is singularly not being delivered by many boroughs, including Liberal Democrat boroughs such as Islington and the Conservative boroughs to which I referred earlier.
	I do not wish to take up a great deal of time as others wish to speak, but let me give an example that shows the crushing need for the powers to lie with a responsible authority, rather than with many of the borough councils. I had the pleasure this morning of attending the opening of a housing development in my constituency—a development of 128 affordable homes, opened by the Countess of Wessex and including 21 homes run by the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation for ex-servicemen who had previously been homeless. The rest of the development is a mix of shared ownership and affordable homes run by Threshold Housing.
	The scheme is a model development in every respect. It is built on derelict land in place of housing that had been demolished by a Conservative Government for a road widening scheme that was rightly withdrawn by a Labour Government. It is built to the highest environmental standards, with water drawn from a borehole deep in the earth, which also provided heating. It is environmentally self-sufficient, with internal gardens within the property. Some of the people to whom I spoke, who are residents of the housing, described it as more like a boutique hotel than social housing. I have no doubt that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) will visit it shortly—they always visit model housing developments in my constituency—and say how wonderful it is.
	Needless to say, the development was commissioned and built under the guidance of a Labour council. That council is now a Conservative council. Two weeks ago, another scheme went before a Conservative-controlled planning committee. The scheme was exactly the same size, and the proposal was the same—that is, for 100 per cent. affordable housing. At the behest of the committee, the development is now 53 per cent. market housing and 43 per cent. shared ownership housing, but at a price out of the reach of any of my constituents.
	The reason given for that is that there is too much social housing in the area. I need only say that the development is just off the King's road on the Chelsea borders. Whatever one says about that area, I do not think one would say it was an area with an excess of social housing. If that is the cynical approach that is being taken by borough councils, particularly Conservative borough councils in London, there is an absolute and immediate need for a responsible authority—

Anne McGuire: I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) for securing this debate. The issue that he has raised is of concern to many people living and working in the vicinity of the Sonae factory in his constituency. It also affects the constituents of my hon. Friends the Members for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) and for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara), who have attended this debate.
	My right hon. Friend has described a worrying series of incidents at the plant since it began operation in 2000. I am sure that anyone listening shares his concerns, which he also raised in 2004 with my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) when she was the Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions with responsibility for the HSE.
	Many of the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East has raised tonight relate to the health and safety of people working at, and in the vicinity of, the Sonae plant. As such, they rightly fall within the remit of the HSE. However, he has also raised other concerns that relate to environmental matters—such as noise, dust, smoke, emissions and water pollution—over which HSE has no regulatory powers. He has correctly identified that responsibility for those falls to the local authority, Knowsley metropolitan borough council, and the Environment Agency. Later on, I shall make some observations about how different bodies may be able to co-operate.
	My right hon. Friend also explained that the agencies to which I have referred have taken enforcement action against the company—involving both prosecution and the issuance of various enforcement notices—where there have been failures to comply with regulations and breaches of operating conditions.
	As my right hon. Friend knows, I shall deal in this debate with those matters that fall within the remit if the HSE. I hope to give him assurances about the action that the HSE is taking in dealing with the Sonae site, and about what it has done in respect of other incidents in the past.
	As my right hon. Friend indicated, residents around the factory have had concerns about its operation since it was commissioned. Those concerns include the environmental impact of wood dust blowing from the wood yards, the increase in traffic volume, noise, water pollution and the catalogue of incidents that he highlighted.
	I turn to the incident that took place last Tuesday, 20 February. I assure my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends the Members for West Lancashire and for Knowsley, South that the incident is being thoroughly investigated by the HSE. An initial visit was paid on 20 February while the emergency services were still on site, so it was possible to make some preliminary observations of the site and the circumstances to inform the composition of the HSE's investigation team. At this stage, as I am sure my right hon. Friend will appreciate, it is too early to reach firm conclusions about what happened, but it appears that a mechanical seal on a thermal oil line in a manifold room failed, releasing hot oil that subsequently ignited.
	According to our information, the fire was quickly noticed and emergency plans were put into operation. The plant was safely shut down and evacuated without injury to any member of the work force. The fire was confined to a small section of the plant, but heat and smoke from it caused damage to a control room and to some of the cladding on the building. The fire was quickly extinguished by the fire brigade once firefighters were on site, but the thick yellow and black smoke from the fire was carried by the wind, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. Fortunately, as he said, last Tuesday the wind was blowing away from the nearest residential estates and the smoke was carried over nearby industrial estates.
	The HSE's investigation will seek to establish the cause of the release of the oil, the source of ignition and whether the company's systems for maintaining the equipment were adequate. The investigation will also seek to establish whether the company should have been able to control the fire without resort to the fire brigade and how and why the effects of the fire were not confined to the manifold room. I assure my right hon. Friend that if the HSE considers that the company's plans for bringing the plant back into operation will leave anyone exposed to imminent risk of serious personal injury, the process will be prohibited until all measures that the HSE considers suitable are put in place.
	On the factory's record on health and safety issues, the latest incident follows—but is considerably less serious than—the explosion that occurred on 1 June 2002, when a worker was severely injured and there was massive damage to the plant and buildings, which put the factory out of action for about three months. There is no doubt whatever that the company had a poor record of compliance with the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, particularly from the opening of the plant until the end of 2002. During that period, as well as the explosion I have just mentioned, there were several other accidents, some of which were serious. Workers at the factory raised their concerns with the HSE and as a result inspectors paid many visits to the factory and took robust enforcement action in the appropriate situations.
	An indication of that poor record is that the company was prosecuted four times in its first three years of operation. After an incident in 2000, when an employee was trapped in a machine during commissioning, a penalty of £15,000 plus costs of £16,700 was imposed. Penalties and costs were imposed following an incident in 2001 when another employee was trapped by machinery. For the circumstances of the explosion in June 2002, the company was fined £70,000, plus £77,000 costs. An accident involving a forklift truck in 2002 attracted a penalty of £12,000, plus £13,000 costs.
	At this stage I must apologise to my right hon. Friend that a promise to place in the House of Commons Library a copy of the report of the investigation into the 2002 explosion has not yet been fulfilled. Although the prosecution following that incident was eventually concluded in 2006, the commitment was overlooked and I have now arranged for a copy of the report to be placed in the Library.
	In addition to the prosecutions that I have outlined, the company was served with a number of improvement and prohibition notices. Again, there were disproportionately more than were served to other similar-sized employers, an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire raised. Those covered subjects ranging from the preparation of risk assessments and safe systems of work to the prohibition of the use of certain plant and processes until there were suitable arrangements and procedures for their safe use. Formal enforcement notices were also served on some contractors working under Sonae's control.
	I have no hesitation in saying that the management of the company in those first three years of operation fell well below the standard that HSE inspectors would expect of a large company operating a process with significant hazards and risks to both its work force and people living in the surrounding areas. That is why the HSE took extensive enforcement measures against the company. At the time, many of the senior management team did not appear to understand the basic requirements and concepts of health and safety legislation.
	As my right hon. Friend indicated, in 2002 there was a change of management and the appointment of a new managing director and chief executive officer with a firmer background in the industry and a grasp of health and safety requirements.
	During 2003 and 2004, it was apparent to HSE inspectors, as they concluded their investigations into the 2002 explosion and paid routine visits to the plant, that the new CEO was bringing about noticeable improvements to the company's heath and safety arrangements. In 2005, a routine visit established that the new management team had a stronger sense of responsibility for health and safety than existed before. The company appeared to be taking a proactive approach to health and safety and had identified concerns. That action, together with a reduction in the number and severity of reported injuries, indicated that the company was beginning to self-regulate and take responsibility for hazards and risks.
	I understand that there is now in place a health and safety management team, including a full health and safety manager with a background in and extensive experience of the chemical industry, a full-time fire safety adviser and a full time environmental manager. There is also a joint management and trade union health and safety committee on which the Amicus convenor sits along with a number of union-appointed safety representatives. A management committee oversees issues raised by the safety committee.
	It appears that the current management arrangements are bringing improvements to the site because neither the trade union and its safety representatives nor any other employee has raised any issues with the HSE since the explosion in 2002, a clear change to what happened before that.
	Until yesterday, the HSE was not aware of the recent history of fires at the plant described by my right hon. Friend. I give him my categorical assurance that in investigating the latest fire, the HSE will now be looking at the previous fires to see whether they should have been reported, why they happened and what actions were taken by the company to prevent further outbreaks. I will ensure that he is fully advised of the outcome of those investigations.
	I recognise that the HSE has responsibility for a number of issues—